Leave Me
by entre-lagrimas-y-suspiros
Summary: Femmeslash Callica: My version of what happens after Erica walks away in "Rise up".


Leave Me

I stand in front of the hospital for a while trying to understand what the hell had just happened. I can't, I don't get it. One minute we're walking towards the parking lot perfectly fine and the next she's telling me she's going to call UNOS and report the whole Izzie-Denny fiasco. Then, I open my big mouth and start something that snowballs into an argument before my brain can figure out what's going on. All I can do is stand there while Erica says she doesn't know me and then she's walking away from me. She leaves me standing in the crisp night air gapping like a fish out of water.

Three words going through my mind non-stop: what just happened?

When my brain finally catches up to the fact that Erica just left, I feel something inside me snap. What that something was doesn't matter because it gets me moving after Erica. I'm practically running to the parking lot but I stop when I see Erica's car turning into the street. Shit! I'm really running now and I get into my car as fast as possible and drive through half of Seattle like a mad woman trying to get to Erica's apartment as fast as possible. I want to get there before she does, because if she gets inside, she'll never open the door. She's that stubborn.

I make it. Twenty minutes later I'm leaning against the wall outside Erica's apartment trying to catch my breath after running up five flights of stairs. But it's worth it because when Erica steps out of the elevator five minutes later, she looks surprised and maybe a bit annoyed.

"What are you doing here?"

I straighten up, "You don't get to walk away. You don't get to leave me like that."

She ignores me and opens the door. "Go away."

She growls as I move off the wall and right behind her ready to step in after her. "No."

"You're not coming inside."

"I'm not going anywhere." I tell her defiantly. I'm so done being a mess. I'm also done with people leaving me. I'm not about to let Erica leave me without a fight like George did, not this time. I'm going to fight the good fight because it was not going to happen again. Not with Erica.

"I'm not talking to you."

"I'm not leaving."

Erica walks in and tosses her bag onto something, then turns back to look at me. "I'm going to close the door now Callie."

I move faster than I have ever moved and place a hand against the door stopping Erica from closing it. "You could but that wouldn't make me leave."

"What will?" Erica sounds pissed off, more so than when she accused me of defending Izzie.

"You might have to call the cops." I tell her, my hand still on the door.

Erica turns red with anger. We're a lot alike in that aspect, but then again, we're a lot alike in a lot of ways. Maybe that's why we can't seem to get this right. "You think you're funny don't you?"

"I don't think, I am funny, but that wasn't a joke."

"Stop being such an ass."

I can't help smiling at that. Erica calling me an ass after the way she behaved in front of the hospital, after everything she said. "I will as soon as you do."

I'm not sure what did it, but Erica shakes her head at me and sighs. "You really want to continue this?"

"Yes."

She steps back and let me pass, closing the door behind her. I watch her shrug off her coat and move to the kitchen. I stay quiet and stand still as Erica pours herself a glass of wine then she turns back to look at me. "You're not going to offer me any?"

"No."

I laughed but not because it's funny, more because it's sad that we've come to this. "That is just rude."

"I'm not in a good mood."

"Really, I hadn't noticed." I tell her my voice full of sarcasm.

I think she actually growls at me. She shoves the glass into my hand as she passes me before sitting on the couch. "Let's just finish this so I can go to sleep, it's been a long day."

My day has been pretty fucking long too but I have no intention of finishing anything. We are going to work through this even if it kills us. "Fine." I say and drain the contents of my wine glass before sitting next to Erica, close enough to touch her if I want to. I want to, but I keep my hands to myself. I doubt my touching her would be welcome. Apparently I'm right because my nearness makes Erica uncomfortable enough that she squirms a bit. "Its simple, Erica, you don't get to leave me."

"So you've said, now what the hell does that mean?"

"It means you don't get to say that you don't know me and then walk away without giving me a chance to say something. It means you can't get away scot-free. I wouldn't let you."

"Last time I checked, Torres, I didn't need your permission to do anything!"

"We're in this together, Erica, remember. We're in a relationship."

Erica turns red again, beet red. "So now we're in relationship? Too bad you didn't remember that when you decided to sleep with Sloan. Twice."

Ouch. That hurts. That hurts because we're supposed to be past that. It hurts because it's true. "Fine, I deserve that. I deserve that, but Erica, I don't deserve what you're doing to me now."

"What I'm doing to you? To you? You defended Izzie Stevens. How exactly do you think I felt when you defended Izzie Stevens instead of me? When you picked her over me!" Erica's eyes fill with tears, and I think my heart might just break in two, right there and then.

"No, Erica, I didn't pick her over you. I would never pick someone else over you. If anything, I think at least that should be clear by now. I fuck up, I know that, but through all my fuck-ups I keep coming back to you. I choose you."

Erica looks angrier than before, which I didn't think was possible. "Should I be flattered?"

I can't believe she's acting like this. It's too much. I give up. "Do you really want to end this?" Erica doesn't say anything. "If you do then I have no choice but to accept it, but at least do me the favor of saying it straight out and stop hiding behind stupid excuses."

"Ok, I don't want to be with you." She says slowly, deliberately, she wants to hurt me. I know it and I sort off understand it, but it's still a shitty thing to do.

"Liar."

Erica shakes her head and snorts. "I thought you said you'd be accepting."

"I might have overstated it." She lifts one of her perfect eyebrows. "Alright, I lied."

She stands up and stares down at me. "Exactly, you're the liar around here. You don't know what you want, so you lie. You lie to me, and everyone else, but worst of all, Callie, you lie to yourself."

She turns on her heels and storms off in the direction of her bedroom. I follow her and this time she moves fast enough to slam the door in my face. I don't care, I simply open it. She glares at me as she flops on the bed.

"I want you." I tell her as I sit on the edge of the bed.

She gets up, grabs her pajamas and heads to the bathroom. I think she isn't as angry anymore because she doesn't slam the bathroom door. That's something, but I start to worry because I think I've just lost my right to see Erica naked. I worry because Erica doesn't play mind games so if she revoked my right, she wouldn't change her mind easily. She might not change her mind at all.

I take off my shoes, sit more comfortably on the bed, and wait for her to come out.

Erica has never taken more than a few minutes to get ready for bed before but tonight, she takes her sweet ass time. I'm about to fall back on the bed when she comes out. Her face is scrubbed clean of the little bit of makeup she wore to work. She's wearing a slinky spaghetti strap slip in the same shade of blue as the one she was wearing when she told me I was glasses. Same color but this thing is a hundred things sexier and I can't help but stare because she is truly beautiful.

"Callie"

Her voice makes my eyes travel up to her face. She's smirking. I glare at her because I think she's playing mind games after all and that's just not cool. I'm trying to be serious. I'm trying to save us from ourselves. "You think this is a big joke?"

The smirk fades and she looks drain, like all the fight has left her body. "No." She says and gets into bed. "I'm tired. I just want this day to end."

"Me too."

I pull off my shirt and stand to wiggle out of my too tight jeans. My bra joins the pile of clothes and I know her eyes are glued to me as I turn off the light. I make my way around the darken room carefully and slip under the covers, snuggling into her body.

I feel the silk of her slip under my cheek and the softness of her skin against mine when she wraps her arm around me to pull me closer. I sigh contently and try not to think but I can't just fall asleep with everything still so up in the air.

When you mix business with pleasure, shit always hits the fan. That's what Erica told me when I asked her why she wouldn't date Mark. She said you only had two options: avoid the problem altogether or be prepared to pay the price. We weren't able to avoid each other but we weren't ready to pay the price either. So here we were, at a fork in the road where a decision had to be made, business or pleasure. One had to be sacrificed at the altar of the other and I'm ready to pay the price now.

"Erica"

"Yeah."

"I do know what I want. I want you. And you don't get to say you don't know me because you do. You know me better than anyone else Erica, because you walked into Seattle Grace and saw how broken I was. You're the one who picked up the pieces and put them back together. So you know me."

"Callie, we don't have to do this now. We…"

"Just let me finish, Erica. I don't care if you call UNOS and report Izzie and the Chief. If you want to, I have no right to ask you not to. If you want to leave the hospital, that's fine too. I don't care. But you don't get to leave me over this, Erica, because this has nothing to do with us."

"Okay."

"Okay?" Could it be that easy?

"Yeah." She presses her lips against my hair. "Now go to sleep."

"Okay."

I guess it really is easy. I finally made my choice. I choose Erica, and Erica chose me because she isn't going anywhere.

I don't know if Erica is going to call UNOS or not. I don't know if the hospital will loose its status as a transplant center, or if Izzie Stevens will be able to practice medicine again. I'm not worried because Erica isn't going to leave me over this, and I'm going to try my damn hardest so that she never has a reason to leave me.


End file.
